PHOENIX, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- America West Airlines (NYSE: AWA - News), the nation's second largest low-fare airline, announced today that it is eliminating hub operations in Columbus, Ohio, and, as a result, phasing 12 regional jets out of the America West Express fleet.

"The airline industry continues to face very difficult economic conditions, and the outlook for the foreseeable future offers little relief," said Douglas Parker, chairman and chief executive officer. "A necessary and critical component of restoring industry profitability is the elimination of consistently unprofitable flying. While it's clear that the airline industry's hub-and-spoke system is here to stay, it is also clear that we, as an industry, have far too many hubs.

"America West simply will not retain unprofitable portions of its operation in hopes that things might one day get better. To that end, we have made the decision to discontinue utilizing Columbus as a hub within the America West network and to concentrate our assets in our stronger hubs in Phoenix and Las Vegas," added Parker. "This is a most difficult decision for us because it impacts our loyal customers, the city of Columbus and, most importantly, our employees. However, as we look ahead it is clear that this is the right decision -- a step we must take to enhance America West's financial position, which will benefit everyone associated with our airline in the long run."

While it no longer will be a hub, Columbus will remain an integral part of America West's network as a field station, or destination city. Between early April and mid-June, America West will gradually downsize the hub to a planned four mainline flights per day to Phoenix and Las Vegas. Today, Columbus accounts for 49 daily departures to 15 destinations.

"America West established Columbus as part of a strategy to connect passengers within the southern and central United States to East Coast markets," said Scott Kirby, executive vice president, Sales and Marketing. "However, as flights from our primary hubs of Phoenix and Las Vegas grew to major East Coast markets, the value of Columbus as a connecting hub has diminished."

According to Kirby, a number of other factors have also changed in recent years. "Due to the large number of regional jets now deployed by many airlines throughout the east, an abundance of capacity exists relative to demand in the markets served by Columbus today. Additionally, Columbus has seen a much larger decline in profitability during this economic downturn than the rest of our system."

As a result, he said, despite America West's best efforts to improve financial performance, the airline is incurring losses of approximately $25 million per year from its Columbus hub operations.

As part of the downsizing of the hub, beginning April 1 America West will phase 12 Columbus-based regional jets, all of which are currently operated by Chautauqua Airlines under the America West Express banner, out of its fleet. The aircraft, which form the nucleus of America West's hub in Columbus, are scheduled to be fully transitioned out of the fleet by mid-June. All 12 jets will remain with Chautauqua.

"Chautauqua Airlines has been a valuable partner to America West in Columbus, and we regret having to end our very close relationship," said Kirby. "As a regional partner to other major airlines, Chautauqua understands the difficulties facing our industry and has been very supportive of our position."

About 65 America West employees will remain in Columbus. The remainder of the approximately 400 Columbus-based employees will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other positions within America West. Those who choose not to relocate will receive severance packages.

"We take this action with particularly mixed emotions," said Parker. "Our employees in Columbus are outstanding. They've done a great job over the years of building a hub, representing America West in the community and providing wonderful service to our customers. We are hopeful that all of them will remain a part of the America West team. Those choosing not to will be treated fairly and with respect.

"Likewise, business and political leaders in Columbus and throughout Ohio have been incredibly supportive of America West. Fortunately for the people of Columbus, America West faced major airline competition on nearly every route that we are discontinuing, so the city will not lose significant non- stop service to any market."

With the downsizing of Columbus, America West must eliminate service to New York City LaGuardia Airport because perimeter rules at that airport prohibit flights beyond 1,500 miles. This precludes service from America West's hubs in Phoenix and Las Vegas. However, the airline will continue to serve the New York metropolitan area through both John F. Kennedy and Newark International Airports. With the exception of LaGuardia, no other year-round America West destination will be closed as a result of the elimination of the Columbus hub.

In the first quarter of 2003 the company expects to record a pre-tax special charge of approximately $10 to $15 million resulting from the elimination of its Columbus hub operations. The charge is related to the costs to terminate certain contracts, the write-off of leasehold improvements and employee transfer and severance expenses.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause America West's actual results and financial position to differ materially from these statements. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks and government responses, the resulting negative impacts on revenues due to airport closures and reduced demand for air travel, increased costs due to enhanced security measures and related government directives, the ability of the company to obtain sufficient additional financing if necessary to survive the adverse economic effects following the September 11 attacks, limitations on financing flexibility due to high levels of debt, financial and other covenants in debt instruments and cross default provisions and the potential dilutive impact of the warrants and convertible notes issued in connection with the term loan and related transactions, the cyclical nature of the airline industry, competitive practices in the industry, the impact of changes in fuel prices, relations with unionized employees generally and the impact of the process of negotiation of labor contracts on the company's operations, the outcome of negotiations of collective bargaining agreements and the impact of these agreements on labor costs, the impact of industry regulations and other factors described from time to time in the company's publicly available SEC reports. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this press release.

Like the original poster said, this isn't a shocker. Even in this dramatically slimmed down times there is still too much capacity out there. What was left of mainline HP at Columbus could be better deployed out of PHX and LAS. And it seems that Chautauqua's 12 ERJs have found a new home, which also isn't much of shocker.

The raison d'etre of the Columbus hub which pretty much diluted by the mid-90s with the massive influx of the A320s into the fleet, which made flights from Phoenix and Las Vegas to destinations that were only serve from Columbus possible. Had times been better (doesn't that seem to be the mantra these days) there was certainly potential to make CMH viable. But it still begs the question, would that type and level of expansion come at the expense of Phoenix and Las Vegas. Ultimately it is a smart decision by Parker and company to keep America West flying.

Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia

DL also hinted that they will be adding more new service at CMH. My bets are CMH-DFW and CMH-BOS. HP will be abandoning both these routes and they fit well within DL's strategic goals to improve feed at DFW and buildup BOS. DL might also add another flight from CMH to MCO.

Question, what happen's to HP in-perimeter slots as DCA and LGA? HP already said that they will be forced to abandon LGA completely because of the perimeter rule. HP has 6 beyond perimeter slots at DCA, but they also have in-perimeter slots for the flights to CMH. I assume they will go up for bid by the DOT....might be Airtran's chance to get a hold of more slots.

I seem to recall a request by HP on the DOT docket for an exemption to the 1,500nm LGA perimeter rule so they could fly PHX-LGA nonstop. LGA is currently the only HP destination to be closed by the CMH downsizing, since it's the only city they could serve LGA from.

The idea behind the request was that HP was at a "competitive disadvantage" in the NY market since they could only offer nonstops to EWR and JFK from their LAS and PHX hub operations, while other carriers enjoyed the ability to serve LGA from one if not all of their hubs.

Does anyone have an idea what the status of this request is?

"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem - government IS the problem." - Ronald Reagan

As an America West employee at the Columbus hub, I feel like a shell of my former self. There are so many wonderful people here that will be left without a job. This airline made it possible for me to finally realize my dream of being a part of the aviation industry, and now I am watching my dream smashed to pieces.

All I can say is this, I still love this airline, I wish it the best of luck without Columbus, and godspeed to all my fellow coworkers, that they all may see better times.

About 65 America West employees will remain in Columbus. The remainder of the approximately 400 Columbus-based employees will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other positions within America West. Those who choose not to relocate will receive severance packages.

Beats the alternative.

Does anyone know how AA/Eagle is doing with their Columbus station these days?

Yeah, me too. I'm guess that about CMH hubs is close for AWA. I wish that will best good luck for without Columbus, OH. Well, when is think now with Delta Connections will chance expand more flight out of CMH to midwest or the south? Please let us know! Thanks!!

America West had served Toronto from PHX in the past, starting in Oct. of 2000; I believe the service was discontinued after 9/11/2001. Mainline service was restarted this past December, with flights to both LAS and PHX.

Interestingly, I think the beyond-perimeter DCA slots helped to kill the CMH hublet, since keeping DCA in the route system was probably one important reason for maintaining the level of service at CMH. And access to LGA with about 250 seats daily probably wasn't worth the overall expense of the hub, especially considering that they need to get the operation to break-even soon in order to start paying back their loan. Cash flow in 2002 looked to be close to -$150 million. 2003 looks to be as bad as 2002 or worse if there's a war in Iraq; it won't be pretty if their cash drops into the $100-150 million range.

As their press release stated, HP faced competition on virtually all its non-stop routes from CMH (WN to BWI, PHX, LAS, MCO; DL to LGA, DCA, MCO; US to LGA, DCA, PHL; AA to DFW, ORD, LGA, BOS; AC to YYZ, CO to EWR, UA to ORD; the only exceptions seemed to be BDL, RSW, and LAX), and that certainly didn't help the viability of the hublet. Not to mention being sandwiched between several larger hubs (PIT, DTW, CLE, CVG) within 250 miles. Annual losses of $25 million in the CMH operation mean that HP was losing, on average, $20 on every seat flown in and out of that hub.

I think that the point of Parker's statement is that there is no slack in that market. Likely Southwest and Delta might pick up a handful of flights, but nothing major and more likely related to build-ups elsewhere than in Columbus.

Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia

I'm not sure I'd call America West a low-fare airline on all those routes; walk-up round-trip fares to LGA are still $798; CMH-BOS walk-up is $866; CMH-PHL is $750; CMH-DFW is $834; CMH-BDL is $552. Amazingly, though, CMH-BWI is only $182 round-trip...could that have something to do with Southwest?

To be frank, I believe that HP's conversion to a "low-fare" strategy was more-or-less an acknowledgement that they compete with WN on the vast majority of their routes -- and that they needed to be more like WN in order to compete with WN.

I'm not sure I'd call America West a low-fare airline on all those routes; walk-up round-trip fares to LGA are still $798; CMH-BOS walk-up is $866; CMH-PHL is $750; CMH-DFW is $834; CMH-BDL is $552. Amazingly, though, CMH-BWI is only $182 round-trip...could that have something to do with Southwest?